SnowPro Advanced: Security Engineer Question 284
Select 2Changes in serverless compute consumptionA Security Engineer notices a sudden increase in serverless compute charges in a Snowflake account after a new governance rollout. Warehouses show no corresponding increase in usage, but the ACCOUNT_USAGE views indicate higher consumption in serverless features. The engineer must determine which recent security-related changes are the most likely contributors to the increase. Which TWO changes would most directly increase serverless compute consumption?
- A
Enabling and running Automatic Sensitive Data Classification across a larger set of databases and schemas
- B
Creating additional virtual warehouses for security analysts to run ad hoc investigations
- C
Adding more frequent executions of serverless TASKs that evaluate security monitoring queries
- D
Granting the SECURITYADMIN role to more users so they can review masking policies
- E
Increasing network policy restrictions for users connecting from corporate IP ranges
Show answer and explanation
Correct answers: A, C
Explanation
The key to this scenario is distinguishing serverless compute from warehouse-based compute. Snowflake serverless compute is used by specific platform-managed features, including serverless TASKs and data governance capabilities such as sensitive data classification. When a governance rollout expands automated classification or adds frequent serverless security checks, serverless consumption can increase even if warehouse usage remains flat. By contrast, creating virtual warehouses affects warehouse credits, and administrative changes such as role grants or network policy updates do not directly drive serverless compute usage. In practice, Security Engineers should review account usage and billing views for serverless-related activity and correlate increases with recently enabled governance automation. Relevant Snowflake documentation includes serverless features usage, TASKs that run on serverless compute, and sensitive data classification behavior and billing considerations.
- A. Correct.
Correct. Automatic Sensitive Data Classification is a Snowflake capability that can consume serverless compute when classification jobs are executed. Expanding classification to more objects increases the amount of metadata and data analysis Snowflake performs, which can raise serverless usage. This is a realistic cause of increased charges after a governance rollout.
- B. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Virtual warehouses consume warehouse credits, not serverless compute credits. This option is plausible because total account cost could increase, but it would not explain a rise specifically attributed to serverless compute consumption.
- C. Correct.
Correct. Serverless TASKs run without a user-managed warehouse and therefore consume serverless compute. If a security team adds more frequent monitoring or policy-validation tasks, especially across many objects, serverless usage can rise noticeably.
- D. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Granting a role to more users affects access control administration but does not itself trigger serverless compute consumption. Reviewing masking policies is primarily a metadata and privilege management activity unless paired with other compute-heavy operations.
- E. Incorrect.
Incorrect. Network policies govern client access restrictions. Tightening allowed IP ranges is a security configuration change and does not by itself consume serverless compute. A candidate might choose this if they assume all security controls have compute cost, but this control is not a driver of serverless consumption.